Tuesday evening I picked up my child from a TWELVE HOUR field trip! Yes, you read that correctly. They left school at 8:00 am and returned at 7:30 PM!  I think his teacher’s head needs to be examined.  In my day, our big field trip was a ten block gaunt to the downtown library. For Ben’s class, it’s a trip to IOWA! On a TUESDAY!

So after I scooped up my puddle of a child, I brought him home and told him to immediately do his homework since it was already almost 8 pm. No, I didn’t. Even I’m not THAT mean. Instead I set him up on the couch for a good hour of bad TV. When what to my wondering eyes should appear but his very flushed little face, red eyes and a cough with a runny nose that would not stop.

“I’m sure it’s just a cold.” I told myself. Except when I put him in bed for the night and gave him a goodnight kiss, I knew he had a fever. My Mom Lips on that boy’s forehead are a way better indicator than some stupid thermometer. That and I couldn’t find the darn thing.

Once I left his room I went into a full scale panic. Since I work for a health care provider we have been inundated with precautions for H1N1. The symptoms have been shoved down our throats almost on a daily basis. Therefore I knew for certain that cough + headache + runny nose + fever = 100% Swine Flu!

After I stopped running around in small circles I did the next most mature thing a 37 year old mother does. I called my mommy. “MOM! Ben has a fever! And a cough! AND A RUNNY NOSE! Do you know what this means!? SWINE FLU MOTHER! The boy has the SWINE FLU!”

Even though I was in such a thither, I did hear my mother say, “Rebecca, calm down and find the thermometer and take his temp. Without your ‘Mom Lips’”.

I followed her advice, found the REAL thermometer and proceeded to wake up my child to take his temp. OK so it was only 99 but I was certain at any moment the fever would spike and he would start oinking.

Of course I deserved all this. I was the one who months ago was all, “This Swine Flu is such a media hype. Come on!” Hell in May, I even posted THIS cartoon. Serves this Jew, who failed to atone for her sins on Yom Kippur, right that my child would get the very un-Kosher SWINE flu.

The truth is, I wasn’t as worried at how sick he would be as how we would be quarantined for days on end. Ben and I alone, in our apartment, ALONE for DAYS ON END, would not be good. Even Facebook couldn’t keep us occupied for that long.

But Swine Flu it was and somehow we would deal.

I accepted my fate as I called into work for the next day, called Ben in “sick with the Swine Flu” to school, changed my Facebook status to “Ben has H1N1″ and went to bed with visions of piglets swimming through my head.

The next morning I was awoken by a very cute, VERY COOL, very clear eyed boy saying, “Mom! Shouldn’t you be up? Don’t we have to get going?”
“But… but you were dying. You had The Swine. Just last night. I called you in sick to school… how are you feeling!?”

His mother might be not that smart but this kid certainly is as he said, “Oh um, yeah, I’m feeling a little bit better. <cough cough> Can I play PS2 now?”

The moral of this story is that sometimes, a cold is just a cold even with a low grade fever. Sometimes the media hype can really get the best of us. And sometimes, just sometimes, this Princess tends to overreact.